21st Century
Learning Space
Library News
BOOK WEEK
Wow what a fantastic end to Book Week! I’d like to extend a big thank you to the whole school community for participating in Book Week 2023 – Read, Grow, Inspire. Our students and staff embraced the Book Character Dress-up Day and there were some great conversations regarding book characters and our favourite books. Thank you to everyone who made the effort to put some book character costumes together for our students. As I greeted families entering the school on Friday morning and visited classrooms there were smiling faces everywhere! It was wonderful to see. The Book Week Parade before Assembly was a lovely final celebration. A big thank you again to our wonderful school community for your support and for making our Book Week celebrations so special.
Like Dr. Seuss said “the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn. The more places you’ll go. So read, read, read.” No-one should ever stop reading and learning. It can be a simple joy, an adventure, a little bit of magic, an escape into the big wide world! Thank you it was a thoroughly enjoyable week.
VICTORIAN PREMIERS’ READING CHALLENGE
The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is over for another year. I am pleased to say that our students have read a lot of books! This year our students in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 read 30 books with their classroom teachers. The students in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 read a minimum of 15 books. Many of our students read more than the required 15 books which is fantastic. We had a grand total of 10,908 books read! Well done everyone and keep up the reading stamina!
Our ‘Top 5 Books’ read were The Speedy Sloth by Rebecca Young which was read for National Simultaneous Storytime in May. The other ‘Top Reads’ were Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland, The Very Brave Bear by Nick Bland, and Who Sank the Boat by Pamela Allen. The Rowville Primary School ‘Favourite Books’ listed were various titles from the series Dairy of a Wimpy Kid, Star Wars and Lego books.
I hope your enjoyment of reading continues and that our students find books that they love to read over and over again. We have taken up the Reading Challenge and continued our reading journeys with lots of enthusiasm. The Reading Challenge Certificates will arrive in November for distribution. Congratulations and well done to everyone.
THANK YOU
Thank you to the Kille-Duncan family for your recent book donations. The Alex Rider series of books is still read by our older students and the books are a welcome addition to our school library collection. Thank you.
ROALD DAHL DAY
Next week the Children’s Book World celebrates Roald Dahl Day. Roald Dahl was born on 13th September, 1916 so his birthdate has now become a world-wide celebration and acknowledgement of the enormous contribution he has made to children’s literature. I once read that Roald Dahl was not very keen on celebrating his birthday but for those that admire his work, read and re-read his books I think it appropriate that we remember him fondly. I laugh at the made up words that jump off the pages of his books like these I found online from BBC.com:
Lickswishy: "A lickswishy taste or flavour is gloriously delicious"
Phizz-whizzing: "If you like something or someone"
Wondercrump: "Wonderful or splendiferous"
Snozzberry: "A type of berry you can eat"
Snozzwanger: "A deadly three-footed creature that preys on Oompa-Loompas"
Scrumdiddlyumptious: "Food that is utterly delicious"
Flushbunking: "Makes no sense whatsoever"
Gobblefunk: To "play around with [words] and invent new words or meanings"
Bopmuggered: "If a giant is bopmuggered, he is in a very bad situation"
Frobscottle: A "green fizzy drink that the BFG and other giants drink instead of water"
Swashboggling: "Very special"
Squishous: "Very easy to squish"
And Whizzpopping, biffsquiggled, ringbeller, trogglehumper, knid to name a few more. Roald Dahl even has his own dictionary with over 8,000 words he has made up or used in his books. It’s a really good fun read.
So next week pick up a copy of The BFG, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, Esio Trot (one of my favourites) or any of his other books and enjoy the fun, mischief and world of Roald Dahl. I don’t think they will ever go out of print. And the last words must go to Roald Dahl himself who had some great quotes that told us more about how he thought than anything else. I love these quotes:
"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books."
"Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it."
"If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books."
Jackie Hicks
21st Century Learning Space Manager